Water Rescues
by whoeverIamloves
Summary: One-shots in which someone saves someone from drowning, because I like to explore what thoughts go through their heads depending on who's the saver and who's the savee, and I have a thing for water rescues. Likely to be mostly canon-friendly. Fair warning: Angsty drowning thoughts and vivid descriptions. First 2 are Kakashi and older badass Sakura, then younger genin Sakura.
1. Sakura saves Kakashi

I have a thing for water rescues, so this is going to be an exploration of various rescues and how they would differ depending on the nature of the rescuer's and rescuee's friendships.

Disclaimers: I own nothing related to the Naruto universe.

* * *

Air.

He was running out of air.

Fast.

The concrete block encasing his feet was not going to allow him to do much, though, and with his hands chained behind his back, he couldn't form any seals to try any jutsus to break it.

 _This will slow you down, you damn speed demon!_ his captors had joked as they'd poured the thick gray mixture into the bucket around his feet. They'd come from out of nowhere, an entire platoon of ANBU-level enemies surrounding the camp when his partner stepped away for a few minutes. He'd managed to take out a couple of them, but they'd been too smart, fast, well-informed and well trained to fight off all of them.

They'd used the element of surprise to quickly overpower him, then blindfolded him tightly and tied his hands even more tightly behind his back, then carried him away. He could only hope his partner had been safely ignored, because there was nothing he could do for her now.

Because now he was going to die.

He'd held his breath as long as possible, but there hadn't been much to hold because his captors had thought of that too, and landed a solid punch to his solar plexus just as they dumped him overboard. It had knocked the wind out of him and ensured he wouldn't have time to draw in any extra air before the block encasing his feet was dragging him down to the bottom, here in the deep middle of the deep lake.

He'd twisted this way and that to try to find any possible way to worm his way out of the restraints. He'd even gone for the pick he kept in the back of his belt for situations just like this, but the restraints were simply too tight.

As the depth increased, so did the pressure in his ears. The water seemed to roar against his eardrums, painful and deafening. His chest felt like there was a bull inside, or maybe a mountain-sized porcupine, ramming and scraping and straining against his ribcage in its struggle to escape, but that was just the tiny amount of air that he'd already held captive for far too long.

Due to the blindfold, he couldn't actually see when his vision started to go fuzzy, but he felt his mind start to lose focus about the same time that bubbles started to escape from between his clenched teeth. The roar of pressure in his ears softened to a distant rumble.

 _Rin…Obito…watch over my team. I'll see you soon._

The current got stronger…did lakes have a current?

It didn't matter.

As soon as the last of his air escaped from him, he felt his lungs force themselves open again – pulling in nothing but water.

The incoming water made his chest feel like it was suddenly filled with lead, or maybe mercury would be more accurate. Compared to the sweet air he'd never taste again, it was heavy, thick, cold, and definitely deadly.

And it burned worse than holding his breath had burned.

His body tried to cough, but it only sent the last few residual bubbles to meander up toward the surface, and pulled in more water…

…which made him need…

…to cough more…

…but he…

…couldn't.

Not any longer.

He couldn't fight any longer.

His body refused to answer his mind, and his mind seemed to lose its voice in the darkness.

He welcomed it.

He was distantly aware of when he crossed death's threshold, because his feet were suddenly free, then his hands, then he felt Rin behind him, locking her petite arms tightly around his chest.

 _Hugging me without even saying hello…that's so like her._

* * *

Sakura had watched from behind a bush as a massive horde of enemies – there had to be at least twelve of them, and they all looked to be as dangerous as any Akatsuki – finished overpowering Kakashi, binding him hand and foot.

He was blindfolded from before she started watching, so they must have known to block him from using his Sharingan beforehand. That meant she wouldn't have a chance of rescuing him in a direct assault by herself, so she would have to follow silently and wait for the perfect opportunity.

She waited and watched, watched and waited, for two days while the concrete took its time to set. Her opportunity didn't come until the enemies were shoving him over the edge of their boat, and she was able to creep along the edge of the lake to find cover among the reeds to slip into the water.

She was careful not to let any bubbles escape to give away her presence, and her concealed chakra meant Kakashi wouldn't be able to sense her either. She just hoped he wouldn't fight against her.

She reached out with her own senses, feeling for her sensei's familiar chakra signature. The visibility wasn't great here in the lake, especially the closer she got to where Kakashi was stirring up the lake bottom with his movement, but that would help obscure the view from up above if any of the enemies were waiting around.

She saw his hair first. Stark white and waving like long grass or short seaweed, bobbing up and down in the center of a cloud of stirred-up lake-dirt. He was struggling when he first came into view, but the closer she got, the less he seemed to be struggling against his bonds. _He's fading already! Not good!_ She kicked harder and used her chakra to sweep more water with each stroke of her arms. She saw the ripples affect the waving of his hair- it was almost like a breeze flowed through it from the increased speed of her swimming.

By the time she reached him, the air and the fight had both gone out of him. But she couldn't go straight upwards, or else the captors would see him. Her own lungs were craving a fresh breath, but she could make it for a couple more moments at least.

She drew chakra to her fist and shattered the concrete block encasing his feet with a single punch, then grabbed the lock on the chain around his torso and arms and crushed it in her hand. She lost precious seconds loosening it from around his body, with his head just nodding listlessly in the water while she pulled it down off of him like stripping the paper off a set of chopsticks.

Then he was free. Unconscious, but free. And they both needed oxygen, and fast! She quickly slipped her hands around his torso, just under his arms, then found a stone on the bottom of the lake.

He was heavy in the water, flack vest dragging against the current, but she was strong.

The stone she pushed off of broke into three pieces when her chakra-strengthened legs kicked off against it in the direction of the reeds where she'd entered the lake, and when she had to surface before she reached the edge, she was relieved to see that the captors in their motor boat were staring straight down into the cloudy water, so she gulped down fresh air, checked to see if Kakashi was capable of the same – he wasn't – then she dived back down to get as far along the lake's edge as she dared before Kakashi's life would be truly and definitely forfeit.

She pulled him like a wet rag up onto the rocky edge of the water, making sure to use the large boulders that dotted this part of the lake's coast as cover from the boat's line of sight.

She flopped him on his back and immediately her hands were on him, checking his throat for a pulse and patting, shaking, nudging, prodding to elicit any kind of reaction from him, but there was nothing. No reaction, no sign that he was going to be alright.

"Sensei? Kakashi-Sensei! Can you hear me? You have to wake up! Kakashi-Sensei!"

Her left hand went green on his chest, stimulating key points in his lungs to try to make him breathe again, while her right hand patted his masked cheek gently but with urgency. She pulled his blindfold off as she spoke, revealing his normally-exposed right eye. It was closed.

Left hand still glowing on his chest, she used her right hand's index finger and thumb to pull the lid open and see if his eyes were reactive. At least his pupil dilated ever-so-slightly when the sunlight hit it, after being closed for so long. That was the first promising sign she'd seen.

 _He should be breathing by now! Why isn't he?_ She added her right hand to her left, and the green glow over his torso got brighter for several seconds. His chest remained still as the stone he was lying on, leaking rivulets of water down into the lake from his drenched form. _This isn't working._

His lungs weren't damaged, she realized. Just full of what they shouldn't have in them – water. And his heart was just stalled due to either shock or lack of oxygen…also not damaged. Bright green eyes widened and the green glow faded from her hands.

She lifted her hands away from his body, raising and locking them together in a clenched fist in the air. Then she brought her fist-hammer down on his chest, as hard as she could without chakra.

She may have heard something crack, but it worked!

Immediately, water came up through the mask. Then his body seemed to shock itself into consciousness, and he was on his side and coughing hard, again and again, and with each contraction of his ribcage, more water was expelled through his mask onto the stones.

If her blow hadn't broken anything, the intensity of his coughing now certainly would, and his arms involuntarily wrapped themselves tightly around his own torso. So Sakura let her hand glow again against his back again, rubbing softly in gentle circles to let the glow broaden across his lungs and his ribs.

* * *

Burning and choking were the first sensations Kakashi was aware of, and he felt every muscle in his body – every fibre of his very being, it seemed – contracting hard, all at once, to get rid of the water inside him. But every time he coughed, more water came, and it was still there when he tried to inhale again – he just had to get the water out of the way so that clean, light air could actually come in!

More important than the sharp grinding in his ribs or the excruciating involuntary lock-up of his arms, legs, abs, and every other moveable muscle, the heaviness inside his chest had to be pushed out! Later he could worry about surroundings and enemies and the rest of the pain.

Finally, he was able to get a few slivers of air in, and that helped to soothe the burning in his lungs more than anything else could have. His coughing slowed, still painful but much more bearable.

He could see, but the sunlight was sharp in his eye – his blindfold had come off at some point, but all he could see was brightness as he blinked – the water was still everywhere. He could feel his hair plastered wetly to his face, and his clothes were heavily soggy.

He was lying on stones, mostly large ones, and still very very tense from all his struggling and coughing. On his side still, apparently. He could hear water lapping softly against the stones not far from his feet, and birds singing.

And he felt the familiar tingling heat of a medic's Magical Palm jutsu against his ribs. Someone was behind him, healing him. _…Probably not an enemy…_

"Kakashi-sensei? Can you hear me?"

Sakura.

Not an enemy, then, and everything was going to be fine. He let his body go lax against the stones and fought against his body's natural instinct to try to suck in as much air as possible all at once - shallow breaths didn't hurt as much, and didn't choke him as badly.

He tried to answer, but it only came out as another series of coughs, so he settled for nodding.

"It's okay. Don't try to talk yet," he heard her say. "It's lucky I was able to get to you in time."

He gradually became aware of her hand moving on his back. It was comforting – reassuring him without words that she was there, and wasn't going to let him die.

His coughing slowed again, and he shifted to lie on his back. Her hands shifted with him to glow over his chest once again – it felt good; her healing jutsu eased the pain he still felt in his lungs.

When his vision slowly adjusted to the brightness of the daytime and he was able to focus his gaze, it was good to see her dripping wet pink hair and her worried green eyes. She looked soggy too. Once he'd confirmed visually that it was indeed Sakura, he let his eye close in the sunlight and focused on breathing steadily and as deeply as he dared.

"Sensei, I'm really really glad you're alright! But as soon as you can move, we should get out of here – I don't know if they'll realized you're not in the lake anymore but I don't want to stick around in case they decide to search the area."

Ahhh so there was still danger in the area. _Some things don't change_.

He gingerly touched his own chest – no major damage, it seemed, apart from the ribs Sakura was already in the process of healing. And a stinging sensation in his lungs that probably wasn't going away for a few days.

But for Sakura to be the one to save him instead of the other way around… _Some things don't change, but some things do_.

He studied her for a moment, noting how her gaze was fixed on a point out on the water even as her hands kept glowing against his body, and allowed himself a small, proud smile.

Then he took another shaky breath – his deepest one yet without choking – and hauled himself up into a sitting position.

Time to go.

* * *

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	2. Kakashi saves young Sakura

Disclaimer: I own nothing

A/N: I know Sakura is a total badass one she's older, but I feel like that took a while. Also it makes a sweet story. ^.^

* * *

Splash!

The enemy ninja stopped in his tracks, centimeters away from throwing a handful of shiruken in Sakura's direction as they battled on the top of the river. Instead, he formed a hand seal and muttered "kai!", and suddenly the riverbanks both disappeared!

The sudden change startled Sakura out of her concentration, and suddenly her feet were no longer able to stay on the surface. She plunged down into water that was colder than the river had seemed, shocking her. And she gagged on its saltiness.

Her mind stalled and she spluttered for air, but when she finally got her bearings and managed to pop up over the surface, there was nobody and nothing in sight – just water for as far as she could see from her eye level at the surface.

The cold seemed to penetrate every pore and gather in the pit of her stomach. _Nobody knows I'm all the way out here,_ she realized. _And I don't know which direction the land is…so if I start swimming I might end up farther from the shore!_ She tried taking a deep breath, but a wave caught her in the side of the face and she tasted the salt again. _And there could be sharks out here!_ The cold knot in her stomach grew larger. _I was an idiot! I ran off without my team, and now… now I'm stuck in a really bad situation!_

The more she tried to fight the panic, the more she realized what a bad situation she was in, the more energy she put into physically treading the water – which had more of a push and pull than she was accustomed to due to the waves - and the more the panic took hold of her.

* * *

Kakashi's one remaining shadow clone watched his students as they lie on the beach. _Only two of them._

They'd defeated a genjutsu user only moments ago. He was a rogue chunin from the Hidden Waterfall village, and he used his illusions to stay hidden and to lure the team in separate directions, attempting to neutralize them one by one.

Naruto had been lured to the far side of a nearby hill by an illusion of someone who needed his help, then trapped in a metal cage. Sakura had fought the disguised attacker with taijutsu, water-walking and jumping down the center of what she thought was a river as the attacker led her out to sea then left her there. Sasuke had caught a glimpse of the real attacker as he returned from his fight with Sakura, and pursued him deep into the forest.

Kakashi had sensed the enemy's presence and murderous intent long before he was within visual range, so the jonin had casually distanced himself from his genin team and then concealed his own presence. He stayed on the sidelines, watching each of their backs across the distance by creating and concealing two shadow clones, in case this guy turned out to be too strong for them. The real Kakashi had followed Sakura's fight, judging from the direction the enemy led her that she would be left in the most precarious situation of the three.

In the end, one of Naruto's clones had found Sasuke, and Sasuke had figured out the guy's strategy and come up with one of his own, and together the two of them had successfully regrouped to flank him and defeat him.

Now the two boys were lying exhausted and grinning on the sand, with the defeated shinobi securely bound a short distance down the coast. But Sakura was nowhere to be seen, and if the Kakashi clone hadn't been following the fight so closely, he might not notice the pink hair bobbing in the water 700 meters out to sea.

He had hoped the two boys would realize they were missing their teammate and run to help her, but so far they both seemed oblivious. And judging by the time and the increasing increments between her above-the-surface bobs, she was getting near actual danger of drowning. His real self needed to know the boys weren't coming.

The clone formed a hand seal and poofed out of existence.

Out on the sea, Kakashi's eye widened, then drooped as the information from his clone rushed into his mind.

The boys weren't coming.

He watched Sakura from angle where she couldn't see him. He knew she could swim; every academy student had to pass a swimming test and she had gotten a decent score.

But here, she had gotten more and more frantic, thrown into her panic by the sudden change of surroundings when the genjutsu was released and realizing she didn't know which direction the land or her teammates were in, looking around and splashing wildly. He was keeping an eye out for any dangers within the water, but the biggest danger to Sakura right now was herself.

Could she pull herself back from that? He wanted to give her the opportunity to calm down and save herself… but it wasn't looking promising.

He couldn't blame her; they'd only been a team for a short while, and the mission to Wave Country was still very fresh on all their minds. She'd shown determination to step up and take on this enemy; her downfall was just simply her inexperience to control her emotions when the tables had turned on her so suddenly.

Knowing now from his clone that their other two teammates weren't even aware of the danger she was in, Kakashi closed the distance quickly between himself and Sakura. She was starting to go limp and her eyes were unfocused, but she was still making the motions of trying to tread water.

"Sakura, you're okay," he said as he stepped toward her, standing on what would be the edge of her field of vision. She didn't seem to hear or see him, but he kept talking to her. "I'm here, and we're going to get you back to the shore. Can you look at me?"

The water was probably blocking his voice, as her ears were mostly underwater, and her vision was probably starting to tunnel and lose focus. He walked around in front of her and knelt, then reached for her arm. He caught her wrist easily, and in a split second, he had pulled her up out of the water and sat her on his knee like a small child.

She clung onto the front of his vest, then crumpled into a ball in his arms.

* * *

Sakura realized too late that she had worn herself out with physical strain – she should have used her chakra.

But now she could barely get a breath. She summoned chakra to her feet, but it didn't help because there was no solid surface for her to push against. She tried to lift her hand up to the water's edge, but her mouth and nose sunk under the water before her hand could raise high enough, and she had to sweep downwards again before her fingertips could break the surface.

 _I have to calm down! I need to be calm!_ she told herself, but it did no good. _I should at least call for help…_

But when she opened her mouth, water came in before sound could get out, and then she bobbed under the water again.

Then she was hallucinating.

She saw the blurry form of her sensei in front of her, standing and looking down at her as she struggled. She knew her hallucination had to be judging her weakness. She wanted to cry.

Maybe she was already crying and just couldn't tell because the seawater stung her eyes.

Something clamped around her wrist, and she fought against it. She needed her arms free if she was going to have any chance at all of swimming!

Then her whole arm broke the surface of the water, pulled toward the illusion of Kakashi-sensei. Then her face, then her shoulders, then her whole body was above the surface. Then she was sitting safely with him, and maybe he wasn't an illusion because she was able to touch him.

Still not thinking clearly, but now aware that she was safe, she curled into her sensei. He was really here, and he had rescued her from her own stupidity. Her breathing was still far too rapid and her heart still pounded, but she clenched her eyes closed against whatever was making them sting and leaned her head against the now-damp coarse material of his clothes.

"Sensei…" she coughed, then her voice broke against her will. "I'm…I'm sorry…" She felt him holding her stable, and she felt her panic give way to relief, and she was coughing and trying (unsuccessfully) to control her breathing.

"Shhh, later," he said gently. "We'll talk about everything later. Just breathe now."

She had no idea how long they stayed like that.

Eventually, though, her heart rate gradually slowed, and her inhales and exhales smoothed out.

She realized her knuckles were white where she was holding onto Kakashi-sensei's vest, and she realized her toes were now dangling in the water where she was sitting on his knee. He was still holding her, arms steady around her to make sure she wouldn't fall.

"Are you alright now?" he asked as she finally started to feel a bit more in control of herself.

Her face flushed hot with embarrassment. "I… I think so."

She summoned chakra to her feet, and the heat in her face intensified when she found her chakra was nowhere near depleted. She tested her footing on the surface of the water, then stood up. He held his hands near her arms until she seemed sure of herself, then he stood as well.

"Thank you for coming to rescue me," she said, staring at the water.

"Hn." He waited to see what she would do.

 _I guess that's as close as he gets to saying 'you're welcome.'_

When the seconds stretched, Sakura raised her eyes. _If he's here, though, that means we can't actually be that far from land._ "So…which…?"

She still didn't look at Kakashi-sensei, but started looking for a direction. Almost immediately, now that she was standing, she could see the coastline. It was far, but not as far as she'd thought when she was in her panic a few moments ago.

"Oh. That direction."

His eye creased up in his signature friendly smile, though she heard it in his voice more than saw it. "Lead the way," he said, and she nodded and looked back down at the water as she started in that direction.

After several steps, the silence was too much for Sakura.

"I…I'm sorry," she said again, still not looking at him.

"Hm? For what?"

"For needing rescued."

"Hn. Well, that's part of learning. No need to apologize for that; just learn from the experience."

Their footfalls splashed quietly for several steps, and Sakura's eyebrows drew near each other as she frowned. "But…what if I'm not able to do any better next time either?"

"You will be able to."

She still stared straight ahead, sometimes at the water, sometimes at the shoreline. It was gradually drawing closer, but in the heavy silence it still seemed a long way off.

Several more seconds passed before Sakura asked quietly, almost to herself, "But…how are you so sure?"

Kakashi sighed beside her. "Break it down for me. What went wrong today?"

 _A quiz…at least I can handle this._

"I panicked. Then I wasn't able to think clearly."

Splash. Splash. Splash.

"And why did you panic?"

"I…because I was so startled when I realized the whole thing was a genjutsu."

She felt his gaze on her. "Is that really the reason?" he asked.

Sakura considered. She had been really scared when she realized how far she actually had gotten from the land. _But why was I scared? I've never been afraid of water before…_

"Maybe…no, I guess not."

Splash. Splash. Splash. Splash.

"I guess…I realized I was all by myself in a dangerous situation, and I realized that guy could have killed me instead of running away. But instead he just left me there…and I almost died on my own," she finished softly.

"I think that's the core of the problem," Kakashi said.

"I ran off on my own."

Splash. Splash.

"Were you really on your own, though?" he prodded.

Sakura finally looked up at him, and she found him regarding her with a casual gaze.

"Well, Naruto and Sasuke…"

"-got tricked as well."

"I wasn't sure where Naruto was."

"So what should you have done?"

"I should have…followed Naruto? Or searched for him at least."

"And Sasuke?"

She felt her face get hot again. "I should have…um…followed his lead more?"

She saw Kakashi's eyebrow quirk, and she wasn't quite sure if it was an amused shrug or an irritated one.

"Sasuke should have followed you and backed you up. Once Naruto went missing, you two should have made a point to stay in range of each other."

 _But if I had suggested that, Sasuke would have just thought I was being clingy again!_ _And then-_

Kakashi interrupted her thoughts this time. "But, that wasn't my question. Were you really on your own?"

Sakura looked up at him, wracking her brain for the answer he was looking for. When she finally found it, her jaw went slack and she locked her eyes on the coastline again.

"No, I wasn't."

"Hn."

"If I'd realized that sooner, I probably wouldn't have panicked, and then I wouldn't have almost drowned, and you wouldn't have had to save me."

Splash. Splash. Splash.

"Sensei, I'm sorry I forgot to trust you."

"I forgive you." Splash and eye-smile. "Always, always trust your teammates. I'm your sensei, but I'm also your teammate. I will always have your back, so you can be confident when you jump into a fight."

"H…hai."

"And that's how I know you'll be able to do better next time," he said with a grin, and a ruffle of her hair.

They were two thirds of the way back to the coast now, and the silence was much easier to bear now that they'd talked it out. After a few more minutes of walking, Kakashi spoke again.

"When we get back to the coast, I want you to stay out of sight, okay?"

"Hm? Okay, but why?"

She looked up at Kakashi to see that his gaze was now hard, locked on the beach where she assumed the two boys were. "Because I need to teach Sasuke and Naruto a lesson, and they don't learn as quickly as you do."

Sakura was torn between appreciating the compliment and feeling nervous on her teammates' behalf.

* * *

Cheers!


End file.
